Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants it to be the new Singapore. State officials call it Urjanchal, land of energy. For sociologist Sakarama Somayaji, the enduring image from India’s emerging energy wonderland in Singrauli is the women who sell baskets of stones on the roadside. Individually or in groups, the women break stones, and sell them to passing trucks for R80-R90 a basket, a day’s labour. The women are...

Record high food prices are putting added pressure on the United Nations agency that helps feed nearly 100 million of the world’s poorest people, with officials warning of a potential “perfect storm” combination of soaring costs, weather emergencies and political instability. “We are on red alert and we are continually assessing needs and reassessing plans and stand ready to assist,” UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran told the...

Onion prices continued to slide in the wholesale market at Gultekdi Market Yard on Monday due to excess supply of the commodity, prompting farmers to stage strong protest demanding higher procurement price by commission agents. Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) The agitation started early in the morning and farmers disrupted supply of vegetables and other commodities to the wholesale market. They were called for a meeting by the commission agents...

PMFAI claims imported substitutes will cost the Indian farmers dearly Chemicals are the world's second largest traded commodity ‘India has a 70% market share of endosulfan business globally' The Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators' Association of India (PMFAI), on the radar of some environmentalists and business lobbies, on Friday demanded the Central government to withdraw the “erroneous” report of the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) declaring endosulfan as a health hazard. Describing the...

After increasing slowly and steadily from historic lows, world rice prices tripled in just six months during 2007-08. The price surge caused much anxiety because so many of the world’s poor are rice consumers. And it caught many by surprise as market fundamentals were sound. Indeed, it was government policies, rather than changes in the production and consumption of rice, that drove the surge. This suggests that improved government policies...